Hunger can inspire you to order delivery instead of cooking yourself, or hunger can inspire you to start a company. The latter was the case for Brooks Lambert, CEO of Qwikon.

Brooks was driving back from a surfing trip, tired, hungry and trying to decide where to eat. That decision took too long so he decided he wanted to make a more streamlined way for businesses to market to their customers and started Qwikon.

Brooks Lambert

Qwikon helps businesses send out daily deals, coupons and codes to their customers via text. The odds that you’ll bring your phone with you when you go shopping are pretty high. The odds that you’ll cut coupons out of the newspaper and risk being mistaken for an “Extreme Couponing” cast member are pretty low. Qwikon went with the odds in their favor.
When a store signs up for Qwikon they get a Twilio short code called a “Qwikon Code.” You can text the store’s Qwikon code or scan its QR code to receive deals via text. Brooks aims to “help small business owners to fill empty seats on demand by sending text based offers in under a minute.”

Not all business owners can code, so Qwikon uses a simple dashboard where owners can schedule messages, set the terms of their coupons, and easily manage their customer base. Brooks is looking to expand Qwikon into restaurants, health and beauty, retail, and even little league teams to empower the most active users with realtime messaging.